Little Things
by MousyNona
Summary: In the end, it's always the little things that are the most important.


**Fandom**: Shingeki no Kyojin

**Word count**: 645

**Disclaimer**: If it was mine SNK would be a nightmare.

**A/N**: Damn Levi's face for bringing me back to this fandom.

* * *

"Corporal! The Titans have captured Eren Jaegar!"

* * *

It's the little things.

Levi stares rather pointedly at the muddy footprints Eren's just tracked into the cottage, because hell if Levi's going to let this place get any filthier than it already was. He's already getting goosebumps from staying in a place without proper floors – he did not need _mud_ on top of everything, thank you very much.

Damn. Who did he have to kill to get some Febreze around here?

Eren, bless his poor soul, recognizes the murderous look on the Corporal's face immediately and backtracks, but not before he pecks a (sweaty, dusty, very unhygienic) kiss on Levi's cheek.

Eren escapes with one black eye and that's when Hanji knows Levi must be in love with the boy because she can see the dirt on Levi's face and Levi is _not wiping it off_.

* * *

"Mikasa did her best to save him…"

* * *

Mikasa is a panther. Levi recognizes the animal look on her face immediately (he is an animal himself, after all; fighting is all instincts, raw power, a fight for territory because the line between life and death is never a logical thing) and smirks. Lets Eren's name float from his lips like it belongs to him and Eren turns away from Mikasa midsentence, the thread of conversation completely lost.

Mikasa is left with her teeth bared uselessly, having lost Eren's attention the moment Levi entered the room, and Levi's eyes dance the same way they do after he conquers a particularly difficult Titan. All because of one boy.

Levi thinks of how soft he's become, but then Eren smiles and Levi suddenly finds that he doesn't care.

It's the little things that change him, little by little.

* * *

"There was nothing we could do."

* * *

There's nothing Levi can do to stop his heart from speeding up every time he hears the tell-tale _clack-clack_ of light boots on a dirt floor. There's nothing Levi can do to help the leap of concern every time Hanji mentions "experimentation" and "soldier Titans" in the same sentence. There's nothing Levi can do about the way his fingers twist themselves in Eren's hair – the way he wrenches Eren's head back and sucks and licks and bites his way across the pale skin of his throat just to hear the bitten-off gasp of pleasure-pain from that _brat_.

One night, during one of their hurried, bitten-off moments under the staircase, Eren had whispered on Levi's lips _corporal corporal promise me_ –

And Levi, half-erect and with no patience for the idiot's antics nevertheless bit back a harsh retort and growled his understanding, causing vibrations into Eren's body. For a while neither of them had the breath to talk but then there it was again –

_Corporal promise me_

_What? _Levi had snarled and Eren had forced their gazes together, green-to-black.

_Promise me that if anything happens to me you'll protect them._

_Yes. Yes, fine_ – and he'd smashed his lips on Eren's warm and willing ones, feeling the weight of the promise to protect Eren's precious _friends _slipping off his shoulders like oil on water.

* * *

"Corporal, your orders?"

They'd only talked about it once. He'd only promised (stupid, stupid promise) to protect Eren's precious friends _once_. It had been such a fleeting moment, such a little thing. It would be so easy for him to conveniently forget about the conversation entirely and order the entire platoon to go after Eren, to make Hanji go after him, and most temptingly, to go after that brat himself, busted leg or no busted leg.

Corporal Levi bit down on his lip hard enough to draw blood. It would be so easy to let go, give the orders, and _hunt_ until Eren was safely back in his arms.

_But it was the little things that were the most important, in the end._

"Corporal?"

"Who is at the front lines?"

"The new members of the Survey Corps, sir."

Blood. His mouth tasted of blood and ashes and he could only hope it wasn't Eren's blood he was drowning in. "Withdraw the Survey Corps. Call off the search."


End file.
